Assam: Cash prize for meritorious HSLC students

Guwahati: Assam may have produced the worst Class X results in the last five years with almost half of the students failing this year. However, the state government is not stepping back from inspiring the students to reverse the trend.
Though the state education department scrapped the policy of distributing laptops to meritorious students, the government disbursed cash prize worth Rs 16,000 to each student who passed the Class X state boards this year with 75% or more marks on Wednesday. Under the Anundoram Borooah Award, 22,601 students have been awarded from across Assam.
CM Himanta Biswa Sarma felicitated the meritorious HSLC students with Rs 16,000 each in a ceremony held in the city. He said from general degree colleges to medical and engineering institutions, Assam now has plenty of seats to offer to its students which has brought down the dependency on other states.
“Every year, we are opening a new medical college. Now, our students do not need to go to Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh in search of medical seats. We have 1,100 medical seats in Assam today. It will go up to 3,000 by 2030,” Sarma added.
“Assam is investing 6% of the state’s GDP in education and a similar percentage in health. Such a move has been taken by very few states of the country,” Sarma said. Comparing the challenge before the state government to transform the education sector with that of Delhi, he said, “Delhi manages only 1,200 schools while we have 65,000 schools.”